The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

I first read Stephen Covey’s masterpiece, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, in the late 80’s. I was profoundly moved by the message communicated in that book.

I regularly read the book over about once year. I am into the middle of the book again and I am amazed at the timeless nature of the ideas in the book. And I often find ideas in the book that I missed the last time that I read the book and I have been reading the book for almost twenty years.

As I am far from a master of the ideas in this book, the one idea that has stuck with me from the first time I read the book is…

I am responsible.

I am responsible for the results that I achieve.

I am responsible for my happiness.

I am responsible for my thoughts and my actions.

I am responsible for my reactions and responses to the things that happen around me.

I am responsible.

Think of the power that is that statement… I AM RESPONSIBLE.

Not you are responsible.

Or if that had not have happened.

The thoughts and actions that we have determine the level of success or failure that we experience.

The better quality of thoughts and actions that we use the better results we achieve. The weaker quality of thoughts and actions we use the weaker the results.

As not being perfect, we have moments of weakness that may cause us to lapse in our choices. The key here is to make sure that once we find that we are making the wrong choices with our thoughts and actions to make sure we correct those thoughts and actions as quickly as possible to get us back to achieving the results that we want in our lives.

Example: If you are watching what you eat in order to live a healthier lifestyle, and you find yourself making the wrong choices about what you are eating. The key is to make sure you keep your goal of being healthy in your minds eye and then to adjust your eating back to that picture of health you have in your mind while trying to uncover the thoughts that caused the errors in judgement to begin with.

Doing all this while not beating yourself up for making the wrong choices.

This is a challenge but well worth the effort.

As Always, Here’s to Your LifetoSuccess,

John Clark